Chapter 6

The student cafeteria during lunchtime. Though this was technically a magic high school, the cafeteria was the same as other high schools, and didn’t differ very much from middle schools. (Perhaps, though, it would appear slightly different than a combined junior and high school aiming to educate children from society’s upper echelons.)

Here, numerous strains of raucousness overlapped to create a singular tumult.

But one part of the chaotic space suddenly took on a singular order. For a moment, a spot next to the entrance fell perfectly quiet before changing into something more cacophonous.

Though it was just one area of the vast student cafeteria, it was Miyuki, whose beauty seemed to be growing more refined lately, who wielded enough influence—or perhaps better stated as control—to transform the mood in the air.

Drawing attention from every single person who passed her by (and not appearing to mind at all), Miyuki walked straight ahead and without hesitation to Tatsuya’s table.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” she said with a conscientious bow.

Tatsuya smiled and waved it away. Behind Miyuki, Honoka quickly bobbed her head while Shizuku bowed so slightly you’d have to be watching quite closely to notice.

It wasn’t an intentional pattern that Tatsuya’s group saved seats with Miyuki’s group coming to meet them. The reverse occurred rather frequently as well, at about a 60:40 ratio. However, virtually all patterns saw Miyuki going wherever Tatsuya was.

“Oh, Miyuki, you were here?”

“I just got here, Mizuki.”

Mizuki and Mikihiko had just returned from getting food.

“We’ll get ours now,” said Tatsuya, standing up as the two of them sat down, gesturing with his eyes to the newly arrived three.

With Miyuki, Honoka, and Shizuku in tow, Tatsuya headed to the serving rack, feeling a wholly different kind of stare piercing into him than the ones on Miyuki before.

When the four of them came back with their lunch trays, only Mizuki and Mikihiko were there to greet them.

“Are Erika and Saijou still registering for classes?” asked Honoka casually, not seeing the two of them anywhere. Still, it didn’t bother him that much. In their case, not all of them were present every day—for example, the last few days Tatsuya had been busy making stage props (more accurately, programming them), so he hadn’t been at the cafeteria for a while. (And Miyuki stayed with Tatsuya, as a matter of course.)

Given that modern class systems were in some ways flexible, each student commonly ended class at a slightly different time. Honoka’s question was no more than a “Nice weather we’re having today,” just a way to start up a conversation—however…

“Oh, I think they took the day off.”

Tatsuya’s unexpected answer made Honoka’s eyes light up. “Huh? The two of them?”

“Both of them at the same time, yes.”

Tatsuya quickly realized a misunderstanding (?) when Honoka’s eyes filled with anticipation. On top of that, he’d given a smirk, changed his phrasing a little, and nodded gravely as he’d said it.

“Surprising…or is it?” murmured Shizuku to herself, quirking her head to the side. Her tone was dispassionate, but her eyes were immensely curious.

“Wait, is it true?!” asked Mizuki, eyes widening.

“Mizuki, is there a point in asking us?” said Miyuki with a strained smile. Mizuki was their classmate, not Miyuki, so that only made sense.

“Oh, I guess so…” Mizuki’s eyes wandered, disconcerted, looking for help.

“…”

“…”

“…”

All four of the girls’ eyes gathered on Mikihiko, as though planned in advance, and he gave a somewhat flustered response. “Huh? No, I don’t think they’ve been acting like that…”

And Tatsuya dropped some more fuel on the fire. “Come to think of it, they went home together yesterday, didn’t they?”

As his friends started squealing, Miyuki directed an impassive stare at him. Her gaze was asking whether, by some chance, he was stressed out at the moment. He casually turned away from her.

“But really, I wonder why they’re absent today,” wondered Mizuki.

“You’re right,” replied Mikihiko. “Neither seems the type to suddenly fall ill…”

Once the contents of everyone’s trays had changed from food to post-meal tea, the “both of them home from school together” doubts, which appeared to have been quelled for the moment, revived.

“I want to say you’re exaggerating, but…” said Tatsuya, “I feel the same way. And it didn’t look like either of them was unwell yesterday.”

Mikihiko and Tatsuya both appeared to have come to the conclusion that they weren’t out sick.

“Of course, it could just be a coincidence…” said Honoka to Tatsuya.

Shizuku was the one to answer her, though. “It could also not be a coincidence.”

“Well, I guess so…” said Honoka, this time to Shizuku, possibility countered with possibility. “But were they good-enough friends for a non-coincidental event to happen between them?”

“I don’t think it would be strange if it did…” replied Shizuku, looking over to Mizuki and asking what she thought.

“Oh, umm, I think so, too,” she said, quickly agreeing.

“But if the two of them are together…” added Miyuki, tilting her head in confusion, “what on earth could they be doing?”

Mizuki’s and Mikihiko’s faces went bright red on a time delay.

“…What did you two just imagine?”

“N-nothing! Nothing at all.”

“Th-that’s right! Nothing!”

“…All right,” sighed Miyuki. Their reactions had been far too easy to read. She glanced over at her brother.

“Yeah, well…this is nothing more than an opinion with no proof, a guess based on speculation, but…maybe Erika is actually working Leo pretty hard right now.”

Tatsuya winked at her sardonically.

Miyuki giggled and smiled. “That does seem possible.”

Clairvoyance wasn’t a part of Tatsuya’s skill set.

But he could do something similar.

Just as physical distance didn’t directly affect magic, it didn’t directly impede one’s perception of the Idea, either. If a target in the information world could be singled out, then no matter how physically far away it was, there was a possibility to “see” it. For example, if someone could look at the moon through a high-magnification astronomical telescope and pick out a moon-landing vessel (or the remnants thereof), one could “see” the status of that moon-landing vessel. (No optical telescopes had high-enough resolution, though.)

But this time, he hadn’t secretly taken a peek at what Erika and Leo were doing—discovering what they were doing had been completely coincidental.

“Hey, it’s wrinkling again!” scolded Erika as the one she scolded curled up at her feet, clutching his head.

“Agh, that hurt… How many times do I have to say this?! Say something instead of doing that! What do you even think words are for?!”

“But you wouldn’t get it if I told you in words.”

“Sure, and punching me will make me get it…”

Leo’s protest tapered off and faded out.

One reason, of course, was that he was the student here and couldn’t behave too forcibly. More importantly, though, he felt disappointed in himself. He wasn’t getting the hang of this, no matter how many times he repeated it.

“Well…I guess so. Let’s take a break.”

Erika, though, didn’t think Leo was disappointing at all. She probably knew better than him how difficult acquiring a new skill was.

“Here you go.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Erika, in a dojo uniform like Leo, who had sat cross-legged on the dojo’s planked floor, offered him a drink, chilled but not too chilled, then assumed the traditional Japanese seiza position (politely kneeling while sitting on her heels) in front of him.

“You were great at it when you had the mantle on, too… I guess it feels different?”

There was no ill will within Erika or what she said, but Leo scowled. “…The one from the competition?”

Results aside, for Leo, that outfit was a memory he wished he could forget. It was clearly connected to the skill he was learning, though, so he couldn’t pretend he had forgotten.

“It’s not like it stretched out nice and flat like an ironing board. Maybe it had a few tiny wrinkles, but it was still a perfectly good shield. And the fabric had a spell to support extending and expanding it, too.”

Erika, still sitting in seiza, put a finger to her chin and tilted her head. “Hmm… There should be a support spell in this one, too… Maybe it would be faster to ask Tatsuya after all.”

“We can’t.” Leo shook his head. “If we bothered Tatsuya with this, we’d be putting the cart before the horse. If there is a spell applied to this, then I just have to figure out how to activate it.”

“…You’re such a boy,” said Erika, giggling despite herself.

Her smile was oddly charming, and Leo looked away, unable to even snap back at her.

Today was Saturday, but school wasn’t out. Magic high schools didn’t have five-day school weeks. Students still had all their classes (including practical training sessions), and yet Tatsuya had come to visit Yakumo’s temple this morning again. And this time, he had Miyuki with him.

As a matter of fact, Yakumo had been the one to invite them, asking if they wanted to test the modifications he’d made to the temple’s distance target practice area.

Not many places offered magic shooting practice with live ammunition. Tatsuya, who couldn’t use the school’s practice grounds (he couldn’t reveal his Mist Dispersion at school), was especially thankful for the chance to practice shooting somewhere close rather than having to go all the way to Tsuchiura.

Miyuki, unlike her brother, had no reason to conceal her abilities, but she couldn’t use the practice grounds as much as the students in clubs. And besides, the magic she specialized in involved more spells that coated an entire area than ones that pinpointed targets. That made it hard for her to devote much time to shooting practice, so Tatsuya had brought her along, saying it was a good opportunity.

The temple’s shooting grounds were spread out underneath the main building.

“…Eek! Take this!”

As expected, perhaps, the secret ninjutsu users’ training grounds were somewhat different from their school’s facilities.

Miyuki, her inherent competitiveness on display, was breathing heavily, sweat dripping from her brow. She’d tripped several times, and the hair that she’d put up earlier was becoming loose in places.

The floor was a spacious square. Of the four walls, three—plus the ceiling—had dozens of holes, out of which targets appeared, one after another. (Not all four, since apparently being isolated in the middle of the enemy was actually an unrealistic scenario, and in real combat you would want to flee before that happened.)

To add to that, ten or so targets would appear simultaneously, and all of them were set up to hide again after one second. Just that made aiming a handful, but to make the job even harder, any shots she missed would be fired back as mock bullets.

Miyuki wasn’t letting the mock bullets hit her without resistance—she was blocking them all with magic—but juggling offense and defense had caused her to trip several times already.

“That’s enough!”

At Yakumo’s signal, the machines stopped, and Miyuki suddenly sank to the floor, an indication of how difficult this training facility’s menu was.

“Nice job.”

“Oh, Tatsuya… Thank you very much.”

Tatsuya held out a towel to her, and Miyuki reached for it gratefully. Instead of giving her the towel, Tatsuya took his sister’s hand with his free one and gently pulled her slender body off the floor.

“Ah…thank you.”

“You look unharmed,” said Tatsuya with a smile after giving his out-of-breath sister’s body, clad in a thin training shirt and spats that ended above the knee, a quick once-over.

The blood rising to Miyuki’s face wasn’t entirely due to the extreme exercise, but did Tatsuya really notice that? The answer never came out. His sister said “I’m fine,” and he just nodded curtly before proceeding to the center of the floor.

His attitude was curt, but no dissatisfaction could be seen in his sister. They hadn’t come here to play; if Tatsuya had been overly concerned about her, she would have chided him herself.

That didn’t happen, of course. Tatsuya briskly walked over, lifting his favorite CAD in front of his chest. A standby position, arms bent at the elbows.

The moment Miyuki left the floor, without any warning, the training course began.

Ball-shaped targets appeared on three walls. All of them, at the same time, turned to sand.

Tatsuya was in a shooting position now, right hand out in front. He had only pulled the trigger—pressed the CAD switch—once. Doing so had fired twelve targets with his dismantling spell.

Before there was time to breathe, more targets appeared, this time using the walls and ceiling.

There were twenty-four.

Not even bothering to aim at the one directly in front of him, he kept his CAD still and pulled the trigger.

Tatsuya twisted his body to avoid the fine plastic powder that fell on him. As he turned, he thrust his right hand overhead and squeezed the trigger.

As if to fill the gap caused by the crumbling spheres, more and more targets showed up. The frequency with which he pulled the trigger increased to two at a time, then three at a time.

Nevertheless, not one penalty bullet fired at him before the stock of targets ran out.

“Tatsuya, that was amazing!”

As the mechanisms stopped and Tatsuya lowered his CAD, Miyuki ran as if to jump onto him.

“Oh, dear. A perfect clear…” said Yakumo in mild astonishment, walking up from behind. “It’s still not hard enough?”

“This is the kind of thing I do best,” he replied. “I still only just barely made it, though. Who’s the one who thought up that evil algorithm? It was like it was hitting every blind spot.”

“I got the control program from Kazama, if that helps.”

“Ah, so it was Sanada…” groaned Tatsuya, thinking of the engineering officer’s face and how the Independent Magic Battalion’s most black-hearted expression hid behind his sociable smiles.

As Yakumo saw his pupil groan, only to soften his expression into a grin, Miyuki stepped between them, in front of Tatsuya. “Tatsuya, when did you increase your simultaneous targeting to thirty-six?”

But it wasn’t out of consideration for him; a significant portion of her action was out of the desire to express her own excitement.

“I believe three months ago, your upper limit was twenty-four.”

Miyuki was referring to the number of targets Tatsuya could aim at and use a spell on simultaneously. His specialized CAD was shaped like a gun, but spells didn’t fly out of the barrel. Multipurpose CADs didn’t even have a barrel to begin with.

Categorized into four families and eight types, the essence of modern magic was to overwrite information possessed by events, not to shoot a magical bullet at a target. Therefore, it could exert the same effect on one event or many, depending on how the caster specified the targets.

To do that, however, the caster had to define multiple coordinates at once, and that required parallel thinking. He also had to identify all the subtle differences between the events—after all, to use magic against several targets of event alteration like he had, you had to perceive each individually rather than taking all those targets and perceiving them as a single thing to be altered.

Up through the single digits, mostly anyone could acquire the skill depending on their training. Any higher than that and things needed a different talent than magic. Even increasing your capacity beyond that by a single target was considered very difficult. Miyuki’s sparkling eyes weren’t solely due to the brother-complex filters she wore in them.

Tatsuya, though, smiled at her question and shook his head. “Well, they weren’t firing back—that is, they were set up to wait for you before shooting. In real combat, where enemies don’t wait, twenty-four is still all I can muster.”

“Please, you don’t need to be so modest. The training may be set up to wait for you to fire, but I can still only target sixteen at once. You’re amazing, Tatsuya.”

“All right, all right. Flattery won’t get you anywhere. You can use magic over a wider area than me, even when you’re always attentive to me, so you’re probably better than me at controlling it, too.”

“If we’re going that far, then actually, you can apply interference far more strongly and deeply than I can—isn’t that right?”

Yakumo grinned wryly at their enigmatic conversation and interrupted. “Come on, you two. The walls have ears, you know.”

The siblings exchanged glances that said oops and then they both gave a similarly deceptive smile.

Tatsuya and Miyuki eventually left the underground practice arena to the veranda of Yakumo’s private living quarters.

It went without saying that Yakumo was the one who had brought them here. He would frequently treat them to tea after training, but he didn’t usually bring them to his quarters, instead favoring the main temple’s veranda. He must have something different from usual to talk to us about, thought Tatsuya.

“I know you both have school, so I’ll keep this short,” began Yakumo, right after bringing three teacups in and sitting down next to Tatsuya. “I believe you’ve come into the possession of something quite curious.”

Tatsuya didn’t have to ask to know he was referring to the Ni no Magatama. It was a surprise attack but not a shock. If this level of verbal attack were enough to shake his composure, he couldn’t keep up with the priest.

“It was left in my care.” Though indirectly, Tatsuya plainly admitted to it. Feigning ignorance with this man was pointless; that had been made clear to him time and time again. Besides, Tatsuya knew perfectly well that Yakumo wasn’t the type to rejoice over pointlessly exposing someone’s secrets.

“You should return it as soon as you can. And if you can’t, then you need to move it out of your house and somewhere more appropriate.”

Tatsuya had expected Yakumo to give him a warning, but his tone of voice was tinged with an unexpected seriousness.

Tatsuya’s surprise gave way to tension. Instead of continuing as he was, Tatsuya adjusted his sitting position to face Yakumo diagonally.

“I hadn’t realized someone was targeting it.”

His words included a desire for confirmation, not quite believing that was the case. Ever since he himself had run into that trouble—and been hurt—when Sayuri was attacked, he’d been paying more attention to his surroundings than usual. However, aside from one slight annoyance, he hadn’t sensed any threat large enough for Yakumo to be concerned about.

“They’re creeping around very carefully. And they’re well trained.”

Yakumo’s answer, a warning about the enemy’s extraordinary skills, also hinted that he’d learned their identity.

“I’d ask who they are, but you probably wouldn’t tell me.”

“Well, the question wouldn’t be completely futile.”

Yakumo’s response was truly insinuating, but Tatsuya didn’t hurry the man.

On the other hand, Yakumo, possibly surprised by Tatsuya not biting at the lure by this point, slowly continued. “Let’s see… Here’s another piece of advice. If you find the enemy, take care not to lose your sense of direction.”

“Direction…?” asked Miyuki dubiously.

Tatsuya silently considered the priest, wondering what his answer would be.

“Any more, and you’ll have to take out your wallet.”

Unfortunately, the man didn’t give him an answer.

With the priest’s dark smile before him, Tatsuya decided not to inquire any further.

The Thesis Competition was in one week and one day.

“Presentation backup” was a system that—it would not be an exaggeration to say—involved the entire school.

Most of the experimental equipment they’d use during the presentation was finished. Still, for the sake of more effective production and more reliable operation, they ran through one rehearsal after another, constantly reviewing and making improvements and adjustments.

Some were involved with putting together the demo equipment, some planned the onstage production, some instructed others on how to effectively support the presenters from the audience seats, some provided means of transportation and handed out food… Even the “indoorsy” students who hadn’t gotten a turn for the Nines were freely putting their talents on display.

Meanwhile, the more physically inclined students were also completely focused so they could reliably perform their own duties. A few of the heavyweights, for whom one wouldn’t normally consider preparation necessary, were taking initiative and pouring their energy into training for unlikely trouble.

The hill next to the school had been remodeled into an outdoor training area. Magic high schools weren’t prep schools for the military or police force, but since those were the things many students were after, there were a lot of shapes and sizes of such facilities, both indoors and outdoors.

In its artificial forest, for instance, Mikihiko currently lay hidden, watching his senior and training partner.

He was crouched under the shade of a tree while his partner was exposed in a spot unoccupied by trees. His imposing openness put pressure on Mikihiko, even though he wasn’t looking his way.

He was practicing against the club committee chairman, Katsuto Juumonji.

For the upcoming Thesis Competition, Katsuto had been made the commanding officer of the venue’s security team, which was composed of members from all nine schools. In addition to meeting the other schools’ representatives, he took the lead of his own training routines, raising the morale of the other students selected as team members.

Mikihiko had been chosen as a practice opponent thanks to his display at the Nine School Competition. Of course, he wasn’t the only one serving as Katsuto’s opponent. When this started, it had been ten versus one.

Within three minutes, seven had retired.

Mikihiko had only fired a few ranged attacks from afar, and despite never having been attacked, he was drenched in sweat.

A cold sweat.

…Maybe I got ahead of myself.

When he’d first been told about this practice, he’d nearly jumped for joy. He was a freshman and a Course 2 student who wasn’t in any magic competition clubs. Being the Juumonji’s next leader’s training partner would have been difficult even if Mikihiko had been the one to ask for it.

Mikihiko had agreed without hesitation to Sawaki, who had brought the idea to him, vigorously bowing in thanks.

He knew Katsuto was far beyond anyone he could compete with, but he’d still wanted to fight with all his might and gain valuable experience.

Unfortunately…

I need to calm down. This is just a mock battle.

…he’d been telling himself that for a while now.

Katsuto was holding back, as he should have. None of the seven who retired had severe wounds. But that didn’t relieve the crushing pressure Mikihiko felt emanating from him.

Mikihiko was by no means weak-hearted. In fact, he was enduring Katsuto’s pressure well. Moments ago—three minutes, to be exact—a freshman of the Hundred, Igarashi, had caved under the pressure and launched a reckless attack that ended in him being taken out.

Mikihiko’s breath had become ragged before he realized it.

The volume of his inhalations and exhalations had, at some point, reached audible levels.

He immediately noticed it and quickly stopped.

Only two or three of those audible breaths would have made it out.

They should have been so soft you couldn’t hear them from a yard away, even indoors.

And yet Katsuto’s eyes locked straight on to the tree behind which Mikihiko was hiding.

A new layer of cold sweat broke out on his back. He forced himself to start breathing again and focused on his senses of hearing and touch.

He wasn’t bold enough to investigate with magic. He knew Katsuto had found him, but he wasn’t bold enough to expose himself. Peeking out from behind the tree was out of the question.

Instead, he listened carefully to the flow of air around him.

Through the cloth on his kneeling leg, he felt a slight vibration come through the ground.

That wasn’t enough.

His eyes read the slight changes in refraction that the agitation in the airflow caused, and his nose and tongue sensed the ratio changes in the chemicals mixed into the air.

Mobilizing his five senses, he began to rebuild the vague information from his sixth sense into reliable data.

Katsuto steadily stepped toward him, neither hastily nor overcautiously.

…Three, two, one—now!

After counting down in his head, Mikihiko slammed his right hand into the ground.

His psions followed the fuses running through the ground, pouring through a spell circle.

He had set up this conditional-activation spell before hiding behind the tree, and now, with the caster’s psi-waves as a trigger, it sprang into effect.

Four earth pillars erupted from the ground near Katsuto, surrounding him.

They were positioned in a square whose corners lay exactly southeast, southwest, northwest, and northeast; that is, earth, man, heaven, and demon.

A moment later, the ground on which Katsuto stood collapsed into the shape of a mortar.

Doton Kansei, an old-style spell whose name meant “earth-escape pitfall.”

It was not a spell for escaping into earth as its name would imply, but for covering the enemy in earth and sand and dropping an opponent into a hole, then using the distraction and trap to secure time to escape.

Against low-level opponents, it could also prevent someone from moving and allow the caster to capture them. Against Katsuto Juumonji, he’d be lucky if it did anything more than buy him time, and Mikihiko wasn’t arrogant enough about his own skill to think it would.

Not sparing any time to check if his spell worked, he bolted away from his spot.

His judgment was accurate.

Once the dust cleared, a circular hole in the ground was revealed, earth and sand piled up in a ring, and Katsuto himself without a speck of dirt on him.

His defensive spell had completely shut out Mikihiko’s attack.

Still, the screen had forced him to let his prey escape from sight.

Katsuto grinned. Then, he stepped onto the ground—he’d been levitating slightly due to his wall’s repellent force.

To prevent accidents, and to provide help in case of emergencies during these magical mock battles, many monitors stood watch both inside and outside.

“Wow…”

Mari let out a noise of admiration as she watched the screen.

Mikihiko was a freshman, and yet he’d survived this long. His skill was praiseworthy. They’d seen during the Nines that he had excellent abilities, unconcerned with the Course 1/Course 2 system. But seeing him fighting for real like this again, his practical use of magic, rather than his unique magic skills themselves, stood out.

“He’s clever in a different way than Tatsuya,” said Mayumi to Mari. “So many interesting freshmen this year.”

Mari grinned wryly. “It honestly seems like there are more hopeful Course 2 kids than Course 1. That’s ironic.”

Mayumi smiled painfully as if to reprove her. “That’s not it, Mari. Course 1 still has more kids who are altogether better. This year, the ones with unique abilities are standing out, and they’re giving us the wrong impression, that’s all.”

Her remark struck Mari as likely. “I see.” She nodded, looking back at the monitor. “He definitely still seems useful compared to the other freshmen, though. Birds of a feather flock together, I guess.”

“The teachers were talking about how radically Yoshida has improved from his experience at the Nines, too. I hope we can continue to ride this wave…”

“Right, since he doesn’t seem like the type to take a leadership role.”

“Yes, he’s more the type to make lots of enemies, isn’t he?”

As Mari and Mayumi smiled drily at each other, the lookout system monitor showed Mikihiko driven into a dead end and putting up a desperate last resistance.

Preparations against unlikely problems weren’t only happening at school.

Leo had come here again today instead of school this morning, to the dojo of the Chiba family, one of the Hundred and known as the Sword Magicians.

For six hours, with lunch in the middle, Leo had been swinging a wooden sword and was dripping with sweat. The long, thick, metallic-core bokuto meant for practice swings would have even advanced practitioners groaning after three hours straight. Even Erika, who said mean things to him on a regular basis, couldn’t help but be astonished at Leo’s physical stamina and mental fortitude.

“All right, enough!”

At Erika’s signal, Leo let down his arms and, as one might have expected, exhaled deeply.

In front of him, she was wiping the sweat from her brow with a towel.

“You’re really tough, you know that? I mean, you’ve never had any kenjutsu experience before.”

Her words couldn’t exactly be called polite, but the usual teasing feeling in them was absent. She sounded honestly impressed.

Leo knew that, so he shrugged, somewhat embarrassed, then gave an intentionally brusque answer. “Even calling me a beginner would be too much compared to the others here. I’m normally swinging around ice picks and pickaxes, after all.”

“Ice picks, sure, but pickaxes…? What on earth does that mountaineering club of yours even do?”

“I think the same thing sometimes… Anyway, if I’m tough, that makes you just as tough, doesn’t it?”

As he said, Erika hadn’t simply been watching Leo do his practice swings. She’d been standing in front of him doing her own as an example. He’d been watching how she swung and then imitating it.

“The one I was swinging around was a light one. I’d have given up a long time ago if I’d been using yours,” she said, tossing the bokuto she’d been using to him.

He safely caught the sudden throw, then swung it with one hand to test its weight. Understanding and puzzlement appeared on his face. “You’re right, it is…but it seems so light you’d have trouble swinging it with both hands.”

“That’s where the skill comes in,” said Erika, without any modesty or affectation, putting the towel on her neck. As if feeling hot, she pulled off the front collar of her kendo uniform and fanned herself with it. He hadn’t seen anything untoward, but he looked away anyway.

She was being attentive and purposely not showing anything, so even if he acted suspiciously, she wouldn’t be embarrassed or alert. Having been his classmate for half a year, she knew that, despite his rough exterior, the boy was surprisingly pure-hearted and obstinate. Her impression was that he was the type, for example, to see the door to the girls’ locker room slightly open, and even if he knew nobody was around, he’d stubbornly pretend not to see it, and leave.

Of course, him averting his eyes so blatantly still made Erika feel a little awkward.

“…What are you looking at?” she asked, giving him a sullen glare.

“Huh?!” Leo reacted with unnatural confusion. “No, I, uh, wasn’t looking at anything!”

Seeing him so flustered made her feel embarrassed, even though she didn’t need to. Even Erika had enough girlishness in her for that. “I know you’re not looking at anything! I mean, don’t go looking elsewhere!”

“R-right. Sorry.”

An awkward air lurked between the two, but Erika wasn’t the sort to keep on fidgeting forever. “…We’re going to the next stage.”

Erika stared sharply at him, but that made Leo feel relieved rather than perturbed. “The straw sheaves were next, right?”

“Yeah. Follow me.”

Erika took the lead and brought him to a room with a wall of hard-packed straw stacks in a grid pattern. It was for training one’s blade alignment—swinging the blade straight in and straight out. The idea was to cut through and leave perfectly level surfaces behind. If you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t perfectly bring out the blade’s efficiency. This was an absolutely essential skill for Leo especially, since she was trying to teach him the Usuba Kagerou.

“Here. This is a real sword, so be careful, would you?”

This time, she obviously didn’t toss it to him. Holding the middle of the grip, she held out the unsheathed katana to him.

Leo took it with both hands, his right just under the guard and his left on the bottom of the handle.

“You know the process, right?”

“Yeah. The sheaves laid across their sides—first I cut the top one of the stack. When I do, I have to stop the sword from touching the second one. After that, I cut the second one, and then the third one. After I cut all five of them, I move to the next stack. I’ll do the stacks in order, from left to right.”

“Very good. I’ll be taking a rest in the back, so once you’re done with the right end, come get me.”

“What should I do with the katana?”

“There’s a sheath next to the door, isn’t there?” said Erika, pointing next to the entrance.

Leo had watched her take the sword out of it, so he didn’t actually need to check, but he looked that way just to show he was paying attention.

“Just put it back in there. The sheath will do the cleaning.”

The sheath cleaning the blade meant there was a feature inside the sheath that got the dirt off and spread oil on the blade. That was how Leo interpreted it, anyway. He responded with affirmation, to which Erika casually waved and left the room behind.

With a kiai, he swung the naked blade down.

At first, he’d been getting it stuck in the middle or using too much force and cutting into the next level. On the last stack, though, he’d cleaved all the sheaves in two with one swing. That swing was the last one. He was finished with the task Erika had given him. It probably hadn’t even taken ten minutes. Leo shook his head.

It didn’t feel right—it was too easy. Since Erika said to get her when he was finished, he left the room. She’d mentioned she was taking a break, which meant she would have enough time to relax before he was done. At least, that’s what Erika must have thought. He’d taken no more time than it would to drink a cup of tea. He decided he must have done it wrong.

But he didn’t know what he did wrong. Erika had certainly misinterpreted his physical abilities, so no matter how much he thought, he wouldn’t figure it out. Fortunately, Leo didn’t commit the foolish act of wasting time thinking about it. He didn’t have the knowledge to come up with anything, so he figured that wouldn’t mean anything. Erika had told him to come get her when he was done, and though he didn’t feel like he was done, he decided to call her anyway.

He sheathed the katana as instructed and exited the practice room into a hallway, only to realize that he hadn’t asked where Erika would be. That was dumb even for me, he thought, mocking himself a little and glancing around to see if there was a HAR terminal anywhere. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find anything like it. Even if he had, who knows if it would have given him access privileges for private data? He quickly put an end to his search.

If he went back to the dojo, someone there would know where she was. He walked down the hall in the opposite direction from before, and conveniently enough ran into a young woman coming out of the central room. She looked like she was around twenty-five or twenty-six. She wore her calm-patterned kimono (Leo didn’t know what kind it was) with a natural grace; she could have been married or unmarried. She had a plain sort of appearance, but her attitude clued him in to the fact that she wasn’t a servant. And anyway, he was pretty sure there were no young, female servants in this estate in the first place.

“Oh, hello. You’re an unfamiliar face.”

Her relatively formal tone made Leo sure of it—she was part of the Chiba family. She didn’t look anything like Erika, but maybe she took after their mother, and this woman after their father or something.

“Oh…could you be the classmate Erika mentioned?”

She put familiarity into her voice, but it sounded obligatory and insincere to Leo. The sisters—Leo had taken to believing they were sisters—didn’t seem to be on very good terms.

“My name is Leonhard Saijou.” Of course, he wasn’t about to change his attitude just because they didn’t like each other. He realized putting on airs would just betray him. “Actually…Eri—Miss Chiba—told me to go get her when I was done with a task she gave me.”

He also had enough tact to be polite himself, but he almost flubbed it. The woman, thought to be Erika’s older sister, didn’t appear to mind it much.

“Where did she say she was waiting?”

She wasn’t minding the leaves—her eyes were on the trunk. A super-serious type, maybe, but Leo thought there was something else there. Not that he had proof, of course.

“She only said she was taking a break.”

“I see… Then she’s probably in the lounge,” said Erika’s sister (unconfirmed) as she took a small terminal from her kimono sleeve. After fluidly operating its touch screen for a moment, she said, “You can borrow this,” and offered it to Leo. “You just have to follow the path on here. This will open the door for you.”

“…Is it all right for me to intrude?”

“Erika was the one who told you to come get her, right?”

“Well, yes.”

He wasn’t entirely convinced, but he was, in fact, looking for Erika, so this did help. Having persuaded himself, he took the terminal, and Erika’s sister (unconfirmed) left him with the words Take your time—he didn’t know what she meant by that—and started heading back to the dojo.

“Man, this place is huge…”

He’d felt no lack of vacillation when he’d borrowed it, but now he was genuinely glad he had taken the portable terminal from the “sister.”

Still, the route to the lounge was incredibly difficult to grasp. It felt like—no, he was sure of it—he was being made to take the long way around, but he interpreted it as simply how the interior was arranged. In any case, after over five minutes of walking around, he finally made it to the door to the lounge.

He’d been given the okay to go on inside, but still, he held himself back. Erika wasn’t a family member, nor was she his girlfriend. She was just a classmate he happened to know somewhat well (even in his mind, he didn’t call her a “friend”).

He decided to knock first.

He got no response, so this time he called out. “Hey, Erika, you in there?”

Still no response.

“I’m coming in.”

Belatedly doubting she was actually there, he decided that if the room was empty, then he didn’t need to hesitate. He held the terminal in his hand to the reader next to the door.

With a classic electronic noise, the door unlocked.

Suddenly, sound emanated from the room.

Oh, so you are in there, thought Leo, opening the thick sliding door lacking a handle.

A shout of “Hang on a second!” came a moment later.

“…Eh?” came a dumb noise from Leo’s throat.

He didn’t realize he’d made the sound. But right now, he had no time to worry about that. The idea of moving even a finger, let alone closing his eyes, never made it to his brain.

The same went for the person he was staring at.

Erika was standing there, half-turned toward him, frozen.

This was the scene in Leo’s eyes:

Erika was in an unbecoming state, with only a bath towel wrapped around her. Because of her unnatural position, the knot at the top of her chest had loosened quite a bit.

At her hands was a massage chair that had fallen onto its back. She’d probably been lying on there until right before he’d opened the door.

Behind Erika, he could see a door with a proper doorknob. Leo finally realized the sliding door he’d opened had been an emergency exit.

The bath towel’s knot fluttered undone.

Time slowed to a fraction of its normal speed. No, this must have been his mind accelerating several times.

Erika’s hand quickly caught the slowly falling towel and held it against herself.

That finally broke the curse that kept Leo’s body still.

“Sor—”

“Creeper, lecher, Peeping Tom—close the door already, stupid!”

Before Leo could say sorry, a storm of abuse rained down on him so fast that Erika’s tongue could barely keep up with her thoughts.

He hastily shut the door, turned his back to it, and slid down to the floor.

“That spinster snake in the grass… I figured she was still my sister, I guess my thoughtfulness was misplaced…”

As Erika scattered curses and stomped on the floor, Leo, behind her, had a bright red autumn leaf stamped on his face. She’d demanded she get at least one punch at him, and he’d acquiesced, leaving him with that. She hadn’t used her fist, though, but her palm—not out of consideration for Leo having been a deceived victim as well, but simply because she didn’t want to hurt her fingers.

Leo didn’t complain once about the treatment. He believed this was entirely his fault. She’d been relaxing in the massage chair because she’d mistaken how much time it would take Leo to finish the exercise, but Leo opening the emergency exit without thinking first was a different problem. He had just barely avoided seeing anything important, but that didn’t seem to exempt him from responsibility. Deciding it would be best to go home for the day, he called out to her to apologize again.

“Erika?” “Leo.”

His voice overlapped exactly with Erika saying his name.

“Leo,” stated Erika again as Leo swallowed at her sharp gaze. “Forget everything that just happened.”

A natural request but still an unreasonable one. Nothing would make this easier than if he could forget by simply trying to forget.

“…But I’m sure that’s asking too much.”

But the “understanding” words that followed didn’t make Leo feel relieved; instead, he shuddered.

His premonition quickly became reality.

“I can’t have you remembering anything you don’t need to, so you have a lot more training in your future. Not just for the Usuba Kagerou but on the basics of kenjutsu. All of them,” she repeated.

Maybe she thought that part was important. Erika filled him with such dread he couldn’t even get a word in.

“You’re staying here tonight.”

“…I only brought one change of clothes.” That response was all Leo could currently manage.

But even that Erika rejected.

“I can get you a change of underwear. Don’t worry, the dojo will pay for it.”

Even after the sun set, First High was filled with the energy of students rushing about. The school grounds were enveloped by tumult reminiscent of the last spurt before a campus festival. Magic high schools, crammed with normal high school education plus magic education curricula, had no school festival events. The yearly schedule had no room for them. Students participated normally in interschool sports and competitions, but school events where students overcame the barriers of clubs and grade levels to laterally create something did not exist, unfortunately. For magic high schools, unlike the Nine School Competition (the preparations for which were also done solely by those with superior practical skills), the Thesis Competition provided more opportunities for Course 2 students to be active as well, and during this time of year, everyone could fully enjoy excitement similar to a school festival.

The supply team, put together with female freshman volunteers from the cultural clubs as the main battle force, was going at full operation to match this last spurt. On normal days, they would have gone home a long time ago, but today, the girls were running all over delivering meals for dinner. Among their numbers was Mizuki, who belonged to the art club.

The sun set quickly in autumn, and this day in late October was no exception. The western sky, which had been dyed red until a little while ago, had been painted over in a gradient of lavender to dark blue. Looking at the outside scenery, for which the presence of night had grown completely strong, Mikihiko thought, It’s gotten pretty late, and sighed.

He’d been called in today to serve as former club committee chairman Katsuto Juumonji’s practice partner. Not one-on-one, of course. It was a ten-on-one mock battle, and he was one of the ten.

He hadn’t thought it would be over in one match, and he hadn’t wanted it to be, either. Ten Master Clans, Course 1 kids, it didn’t matter—Katsuto’s strength had burned itself into his eyes at the Nine School Competition. Mock battle though it may have been, he wouldn’t be able to get many opportunities to have a contest with someone so powerful. He understood Katsuto’s strength and his own weakness from experience—and that in itself made the time valuable. Mikihiko had used this chance to attend the mock battle with the enthusiasm of greedily gathering knowledge of how to fight with modern magical fighters.

And as he’d hoped, they’d fought in five mock battles, and he’d been crushed by Katsuto five times. As he lay on the ground (or being made to lay there), gasping for breath, his heart and mind were satisfied by the fulfilling time he’d expected. After Saturday’s half day of classes ended, it was 4:30 in the afternoon when he finished being Katsuto’s training partner. So that he wouldn’t vomit during the training and embarrass himself, he’d only eaten a few simple supplements for lunch, and now he was understandably starving. Just as he’d been squinting at the radiance of the sun in the far west, he muttered, “Time to go home.” When he got up, he heard the command that break time was over.

Katsuto was going to be the commanding officer of the venue’s security team, made up of members from all nine schools, so it had been Sawaki, who had taken over command of First High’s security team in his place, who had delivered the command. Mikihiko had stood reflexively, spurred by Sawaki’s enthusiasm (washed away by it, actually) and had ended up participating in their later coordinated training as one of the criminals. It had been an hour since then. The security members were still training, but all the freshmen called as practice partners had been relieved. (The juniors still weren’t allowed to leave.)

After changing out of his mud-stained training gear and into his school uniform, Mikihiko headed for the second gymnasium (nicknamed “the arena”), where the security team was doing hand-to-hand combat practice. On the surface, he had helped them, but Mikihiko was clearly the one to benefit most. He wanted to thank them for that. He was planning on just giving them a quick thank-you and leaving so he wouldn’t get in their way, but…

“Yoshida, you too. Go have something to eat before you leave!”

Once again, Sawaki had caught him. They had clashed with the meal-delivery team. Bad timing, thought Mikihiko. It was mostly only juniors left in the arena right now. Not to say the freshmen selected for the security team were absent, but unfortunately, most of them were people Mikihiko had only just met today. He was hungry, though. In that sense, it was actually good timing. But eating in this group, he thought, would not only make the food hard to taste but also upset his stomach.

His mind raced as he looked for the words to decline. But as soon as he started thinking of a countermeasure, he felt an odd stare of anticipation mixed with relief on him. Normally, anticipation was paired with unease, but the emotion he could read from this gaze was clearly one of relief. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he stole a glance back toward where it was coming from. But as soon as their eyes met, the girl he was close with (or thought he was close with) turned her face away in a fluster.

Then, Mizuki, who had immediately looked away from him, directed an awkward smile at him. He was quietly shocked.

Unable to work out an excuse to escape because he was preoccupied with Mizuki—though it looked like any excuse would have ended up the same way—Mikihiko was engulfed by the people sitting in a circle.

It seemed this was the last stop for their deliveries, and the girls on the delivery team were sitting politely and taking sandwiches out of lunchboxes on their laps (the boys had sandwiches plus rice balls with filling). Or maybe they had just sympathized with the hopeful eyes of the filthy, all-male security team. As evidence (?) of this, the girls, before sitting down on the tatami mats of the small gymnasium—now a judo hall—went around pouring tea for and handing out napkins to the boys sitting in the ring.

Mikihiko sat down when the delivery team’s bonus service was about to end. Pulled into the circle by force, he sat down in seiza on the tatami, then obeyed the educational guidelines that immediately came to mind and sat in a more natural position. A moment later, a girl kneeled next to him and handed him a wrapped meal. He didn’t need to look again to see who it was. He’d been following her out of the corner of his eye.

“Thanks, Shibata.”

After Mikihiko’s sincere thanks, Mizuki made an exaggeratedly bashful face. The lips of several upperclassmen (mostly girls) pulled up into a smile of amusement, but nobody made any remarks. They were students of the elite First High, and they knew how to be moderate. After all, careless banter would end the spectacle, wouldn’t it?

Mikihiko and Mizuki, though, didn’t notice the vortex of bad motives. Neither had the time. She’d sat next to him without thinking much of it, but she didn’t have the bravery to speak up to a boy with all these upperclassmen around, even if he was a classmate. Mikihiko, for his part, wasn’t bad at talking to girls, given the abundance of female students at home (a trend shared among any Shinto-type old magic families), but thanks to Mizuki getting spectacularly red in the face, he started to feel strangely conscious of her and was unable to find the right chance to say anything.

As a result—it bred a very “first-love couple” mood, extremely innocent and heartwarming to those who watched. And right now, girls weren’t the only ones watching over them with warm (or lukewarm) gazes. Even the martial arts boys, who one would think disconnected from this sort of thing, noticed the subtle air floating about. The moment a cliché situation happened—like Mizuki pouring Mikihiko more tea, accidentally touching his hand, and getting flustered and drawing it back—silent murder and silent applause would fly about in equivalence from the entire circle of people.

Having come this far, though they didn’t know others were having a good time at their expense, the pair began to realize something was going on; they were both sensitive enough to realize it. When they did, the eyes on them they’d disregarded began to feel uncomfortable. It was especially striking in Mizuki’s case. Her restless, fidgety attitude slowly grew stronger until eventually, she said, “Umm, I, well, need to,” which he didn’t really understand, and stood up—or tried to, anyway.

Incidentally, in modern Japan, the practice of sitting on tatami mats had long since died out. The average lifestyle now involved sitting on chairs, and Japanese people accustomed to sitting seiza were limited to people in martial arts practices, certain other practices like tea ceremonies, or religious practices—those with special training. However, the generally accepted thought of girls having to sit seiza had survived to the modern day, and most of the girls on the delivery team were sitting that way as well.

The upperclassmen, though, were secretly using magic to make themselves lighter. Once you were a junior, even if you were in Course 2, spells like this that didn’t especially need speed or precision were possible to trigger without a CAD. Of course, it would take anywhere from ten to thirty seconds for effects to appear, and sometimes the older girls would fall silent in order to reapply the weight-decreasing spell. The male students were aware as well, and wouldn’t speak to a girl who suddenly grew quiet.

But for Mizuki, a freshman and a Course 2 student, doing such a thing was still impossible. In fact, she didn’t even know a trick to make yourself lighter with magic when sitting seiza existed in the first place. In addition, she had no relation to any practices that would need her to sit on tatami…

“Whoa!”

…and her legs had gone utterly and completely numb.

A moment after rising, her legs got tangled, she yelped, and fell. Mikihiko instantly reached out but couldn’t quite make it in time. Though he managed to get up to his knees and stop Mizuki’s upper body, it was all he could do to brace himself so they didn’t fall over together. He didn’t have the time to read much into where he was grabbing or supporting.

In any case, after completely absorbing the momentum of the fall, he sighed in relief, opened his eyes, and saw the back of Mizuki’s head in front of him. That meant he had his arms clasped around her from behind. And then he started to wonder—what was the soft, voluminous feeling in each hand coming from?

Mikihiko wanted to stop thinking right then and there. His thoughts, however, betrayed him, and he ascertained what his hands were grabbing. Mizuki’s frozen mind rebooted at the same time he realized the situation he was in right now.

“…?!”

“I-I-I-I’m sorry!”

Mizuki gave a voiceless shriek and twisted her body away. Mikihiko hastily let go. Her hands went to the tatami, and she quickly realized that in her crawling position, her rear end was pointed right at him, and panicked even more. Forgetting her legs were numb, she rose, turned around, and then fell backward. Because of the string of forced movements, her skirt flapped pretty far up. Her legs, wrapped in leggings, became visible up to a fairly high part of her thighs. Then, with quicker motions one couldn’t imagine from a regular girl, she sat back down on her knees, but with her legs apart and hands between them to hold down her skirt hem. Her face was already red, but it was getting so much brighter it was like she was burning. Tears formed in her eyes, and when she rose again, without falling, she ran out of the gymnasium.

“What are you daydreaming for?! After her, Yoshida!”

As Mikihiko watched Mizuki leaving in a daze, an upperclassman girl he didn’t know the name of scolded him.

He hastily stood up, went for the door, turned back to the shoe cubbies, put on his shoes, grabbed a pair of communal sandals for Mizuki—who had run out in just her leggings—and dashed outside, under the starry sky, searching for her in the distance.